I agree. Hence the Inspector Clousseau reference.

The real calls for his head started after the infamous Celtic dive. He'd actually 'disgraced' the club at the European stage.

sigh (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

He handled his apology to the fans perfectly, though, so I'll give him that much.

I thought I was the only one who noticed that he was never the same after the flare. He remained first choice but his form was gone. Which I am not surprised by - being assaulted by a flying ball of fire and thinking you're going to be seriously injured if not worse would damage anyone psychologically. Shame, because until that moment he was the world's best imo.

As for the Celtic incident, yeah, that seemed to spell the end for him as a first team regular.

is sad that we have to witness the passing of a legend, sadder that we still pay him as a legend

Not really, because he played well after the incident up until the goddamned Inter match. That's what did him in as starter.

Yes he did, but by then it had become his albatross. Sad, how one mistake can make so much of an impact.

The Inter match was before the Celtic game.

We're talking about the same stuff, right? The CL quarter against Inter where the flare struck him in 2005, and Inter's fans were banned from 6 CL games at the Meazza - then the Celtic incident happened 2 or 3 years after.

I think she was talking about the Inter game where Cruz owned him at the near post, then a Maldini cushioned header was hit straight at him by Cambiasso, but he let it go straight over him. Stuff of nightmares.

No, the Inert match two days before Christmas in 2007, which was nearly three months after Celtic (Kurt summed it up already). I still get pissed off thinking about it to this day.

Since you brought it up, he never felt comfortable playing Inert again after the flare. Before that, he straight owned them on a regular basis.

Yep. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

He still always got it up for Juve matches, though, because he loved facing Buffon. Why couldn't we have played them that day instead?

This post has been edited by MizNelson: Sep 5 2009, 12:52 AM

Dida was a monster from 2003 till 2005, i could easily say back then, that he was among the top 3 goalkeepers in the world. The flare had (what i presume) some deep psychological impact on him. He didnt turn poor overnight, but creaks were beginning to show in his game. My confidence in him was slowly deteriorating at that point onwards. It was during the 07/08 season that i (and many others including Carlo) completely lost confidence in him. He was making making howlers on a regular basis, and was too much of a liability to play. i think you guys are right in that after the 2007 Inter match, he was not considered our first choice keeper, (Kalac outperformed him! calamity Jane!)

Pretty much everything went wrong for him in 07-08, from Celtic to Inert to throwing his back out at Parma and then losing the #1 spot to Kalac (a major indignity for anyone), and he just shut down mentally that season as a result. He even had that uncharacteristic shouting match with Rino during the Urawa match in the CWC. There was a related article from Gazzetta which Tennie posted some time ago, but I can't find it.

That year was the reason why he finally stopped cutting all those designs in his hair and let it grow out for the next season.

This post has been edited by MizNelson: Sep 5 2009, 06:01 AM

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